Courtesy of All Our Kin

On Tuesday morning, hundreds of New Haven residents gathered on the Green to advocate for child care providers.

Four hundred fifty supporters attended the 8 a.m. rally to protest a lack of state funding for the child care industry. The New Haven rally was one of eight statewide events organized by Child Care for Connecticut’s Future, or CCfCF, a statewide organization that seeks equity for child care providers. Supporters congregated in Bridgeport, Danbury, New Britain, New London, Stratford, Stamford, Waterbury and New Haven in solidarity for the cause. The group dubbed their movement the #MorningWithoutChildCare, a message to legislators calling attention to child care as an essential service. Primarily, CCfCF wants an additional $700 million to be allocated to their industry in the governor’s budget.

“The rally was a response to the governor’s proposed budget leaving out increases for child care, even though child care workers were the ones holding up the economy through the pandemic when other essential workers needed to get to work,” said Marina Rodriguez, senior director of All Our Kin New Haven. “The entire economy rests on the shoulders of a system that is on the verge of collapsing.”

All Our Kin, a child care nonprofit, helped form CCfCF in November 2021 after observing a crisis mount in their industry, according to Christie Balka, vice president of policy at All Our Kin. They partnered with a wide range of organizations and allies, seeking to change the way child care is treated in Connecticut public policy. 

Leaders of CCfCF decided to organize an event to withhold child care on the morning of March 15 in order to communicate the gravity of the situation to the state. Despite exposing themselves to health risks, working through the pandemic, facing inflation and widespread closures, the industry remains underfunded, Balka said. 

​“Providers felt like we really needed to demonstrate the seriousness of what we’re up against,” Balka said. “We want to demonstrate to the state what happens when there’s no child care, because at the moment, we don’t know how we’re going to pay our bills from one month to the next.” 

On Feb. 9, when Governor Lamont released his proposed budget and it contained no increased funding for child care, CCfCF was “shocked and in stunned silence,” Balka said. However, by the end of February, they began planning the #MorningWithoutChildCare as a response. 

The group demands $700 million to be invested in the child care industry. This $700 million would adjust the industry’s payscale, cover health insurance for child care providers and increase access to care for low income families, said Allyx Schiavone, executive director of Friends Center for Children. 

“It’s so desperate and it’s so egregious that the average early childhood educator makes $13.45 an hour,” Schiavone said. “The system is designed to pay women to live in poverty.”

According to Schiavone, the system in its current state is a detriment to both child care providers and parents. Eighty percent of Connecticut families cannot afford child care, and 62 percent of child care programs across the state are operating at a loss, she said. State subsidized programs like the Friends Center for Children have not had a rate increase since 2015. 

Rodriguez, Balka and Schiavone also say that child care funding is a racially charged and gendered issue. The child care system is historically tied to the forced labor of Black women and is currently comprised of a majority of Black and Brown women, Rodriguez said.

“The reason why child care funding is underfunded is that our society does not value women, especially Black and Brown women,” Schiavone said. “This is not just a fiscal decision. It’s a values-based decision.”

Balka emphasized that the fate of the child care industry has wide-reaching implications for the entire economy. Everyone from new mothers preparing to reenter the workforce to corporate CEOs seeking to retain employees rely on the labor of child care providers, she said. 

According to Balka, economic recovery cannot be realized without prioritizing the preservation of the child care industry.

“This has to be our state’s number one priority, it is the backbone of our workforce,” she said. “It’s the workforce behind the workforce. The budget does not currently reflect that.”

The New Haven Green was completed in 1638. 

Correction, March 17: A former version of this article incorrectly implied that All Our Kin was the sole founder of Child Care for Connecticut’s Future; it has since been corrected to note that All Our Kin is a part of a coalition of founding groups.